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Thursday, August 11, 2011

Reading, Not Rioting

NPR had this inspiring news this morning, delivered with the bad news of teen violence in Philadelphia, going on while London's burning.
"We're out here reading books in silence. We're basically being the anti-violence flash mob," said 18-year-old Maria Clark. "We're showing people that we do do things positive. Not everybody's violent."
I do love the thought of reading flash mobs! And it's OK with me if yours is a Kindle, Nook, etc., even if mine is likely to be a book with covers, words printed on actual pages. At least for a while.

Meanwhile, Steven Colbert had his head in "the cloud" recently on The Colbert Report, and I understood him exactly. This is a hulu link to a 5 minute excerpt, "The Word: Head in the Cloud," so it may take a moment to load, but it's fun to watch.

You can stick all your data in "the cloud" now, so you can retrieve it later, when you need it...if you can even remember the bits of info you'll need to retrieve it.

Sigh.... Before the print age, we had all sorts of mnenomic devices for remembering stuff.
Yes, retrieving it from our own brains!

Writing stuff down was the first cloud!

I confess 1) I tend not to retain stuff I read online...I figure I can find it again if I remember to look and 2) I forgot the print matter science fiction I had read when young, but 3) I have wrapped up my scifi summer of evidently re-reading Philip K. Dick and Cordwainer Smith.

I am glad I stuck with Cordwainer Smith, because, as London burned and Philadelphia broke a young woman's leg, Lord Jestecost said to C'Mell, "I want to help the underpeople." And did so.

I want to help the underpeople, too, who seem permanently fixed beneath a cloud of social injustice.

Did you have a sci-fi summer? What a concept.

I never participated in a reading flash mob consciously, though they seem to go on in the train all the time. When someone won't shut the hell up with their cell phone, I just start reading my book aloud.

About Me

"You must change your life," said Rilke. So that's what I keep doing. I worked as an actor and director in Chicago, wrote for an encyclopedia, edited two poetry journals, shelved and retrieved materials in several libraries, walked beans, and was an assistant professor of English. Now I serve as Poetry Editor and Editor at Large for Escape Into Life, an online arts magazine, write & edit as a freelancer, blog "eight days a week," study the random, tend perennials, and listen to birdsong.